Woman lied about son committing suicide

TUCSON - A strange turn of events in the death of a 10-year-old child.

Xavier Sanchez was hit and killed by a Pima County Sheriff's deputy over a week ago.

Now, the Tucson Police Fraud unit is investigating a woman who claims her son committed suicide after witnessing the accident.

Three days after Xavier Sanchez died, his family says they received a text message telling them about the other boy's suicide.

Vincent Sanchez tells News 4 Tucson he was devastated when he first heard the news and now it's spiraled out of control. Police say the woman, who we are not naming because she hasn't been charged with anything, admitted to them she doesn't have a son who committed suicide.

The Sanchez family feels cheated and betrayed.

"I have to live with the moment everyday when I see my son laying in the street," says Vincent "Jimmy" Sanchez, Xavier's father. "I have to live everyday when I was at the hospital when he died in front of me. And then she comes to me and tells me her son committed suicide, he got depressed and everything because of what happened to my son and everything was a lie. I took it really hard."

Fighting back tears, Sanchez grieves for the loss of his son, and up until a few days he grieved the loss of another child.

"I felt responsible for everything because a little boy took his life."

Sanchez met a woman who claimed she was the boy's mother at Henry's Market last Saturday. He says there was a benefit car wash for the boy. He went there to give his condolences. The woman began to tell him details of what happened.

"She knew so much of the whole thing and details where they weren't discuss in the news or anything," he says.

She even showed him a picture of a boy that resembled a friend of his son's. He's since learned, that picture is a fake.

The following day there was a benefit for his son at the Branding Iron. The woman and her family showed up.

Ginger Castellano helped organize it.

"On Sunday when she came, we were all just blown away, we hugged her, gave our condolences we cried. We could not believe her son had committed suicide. And to now find out it was a lie," she said.

On Monday the woman went as far as to go to South Lawn cemetery with Sanchez.

"I did everything possible trying to get her son buried," Sanchez said.

The woman received a call, left the meeting, and later that night, called Sanchez and told him her mother had died.

He says police contacted him the following day.

"They notified me she didn't even have a son," he said.

Police say they conducted a "check welfare" and learned the woman has three children, all of them living with her mother, who is alive and well.

"I can't believe someone would lie and use an innocent child," Sanchez says.

News 4 Tucson spoke to this woman on Monday as well. She claims her husband wanted to bury their son in San Diego . She is not returning calls.

The Sanchez family wants people to know they never gave her any money and that they are so thankful to the community for coming out to help them in their time of need.